A mysterious ship flies to Tokyo, revealing a crew of
Humans from the future who hope to save the past from the threat of Godzilla
once and for all. It seems too good to
be true…and it is. While it seems as if
Godzilla is at last gone, a new menace has been birthed to take his place: the
three headed Dragon, King Ghidorah.
Against this unstoppable foe, Humanity has only one chance: it must find
a way to resurrect the King of the Monsters, it must find a way to bring back
Godzilla.
While Godzilla vs. Biollante is hailed as one of the best
Godzilla films ever made, when it was released in 1989 it suffered low box
office due to the release of another highly anticipated sequel: Back to the
Future Part II.
Apparently Toho decided
that if time travel worked for one hugely successful franchise, it could work
for theirs.
Hence, Godzilla vs. King
Ghidorah, a wacky Showa Era style romp with an excellent Hesei Era coat of
paint.
Does the return of Godzilla’s
arch nemesis for an epic rematch make it better than his last bout with a plant
creature no one cared about? (Box office wise anyway).
The use of Time Travel is just as big a draw for the film
as King Ghidorah’ Hesei debut.
Sadly,
the way time travel is handled is pretty needlessly complex.
Any Scifi movie handling Time Travel needs an
established set of rules that it needs to play by and remain committed too: see
Back to the Future, Avengers: Endgame, the first two Terminator films.
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah is just making
things up as they go, becoming so inconsistent that any attempts to explain the
science behind it, or lack of significant changes to the timeline, just make
your head hurt after a while.
In fact,
the most significant change that could be made to the timeline of this universe
doesn’t change a single thing in the present.
It takes away from some of the fun and highlights just how superior
about discussions of a bio arms race were in Godzilla vs. Biollante by
comparison.
The movie also wastes the bulk of its human cast after
Godzilla vs. Biollante gave us a rare instance of actual likeable
characters.
You have a Scifi writer and
a Paleontologist who do nothing substantial (plus Scifi writers gorgeous
girlfriend (?) who is totally wasted in her role), a pair of time traveling
guys who have no role other than act smug and superior, and even worse, Miki
Segusa returns from Godzilla vs. Biollante and she does nothing besides stand
around and point out the obvious.
Luckily, not everyone is as dull and boring.
Time traveler Emmy has more leading lady
power in her role than Scifi Writer and she’s even accompanied by a scene
stealing robot named M11, who takes the Showa Era goofiness to new heights and
his actor is clearly having the time of his life with said goofiness.
However, it’s Yoshio Tsuchiya as Shindo who
may have one of the best human plots in a Godzilla film, including a payoff
that is definitely one of the best in the entire franchise.
Thankfully, if you can endure a poorly planned out
Quantum Physics lecture by Professors you hate, the payoff in the second half
of the film is worth it.
King Ghidorah’s
Hesei debut is awesome and his penchant for destruction more than matches his
forever rival, Godzilla.
The Hesei Eras
incredible visual effects continue to get better and better with each
movie.
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah feels
like an HD version of one of their classic Showa battles with new and improved
techniques, especially with King Ghidorah’s flying effects and what he can do
with his three heads. They even continue to evolve Godzilla himself with
impressive close ups of his facial features, particularly during that
aforementioned scene with Shindo.
It’s
every bit as awesome as you’d expect from a rematch between the Three Headed
Monster and King of the Monsters.
And as
a bonus, you do get a fun action sequence during the time warp to 1944 in what
feels like an inspirational nod to classic B Movies Scifi classics like The
Land that Time Forgot.
Overall, Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah is a step down from
Godzilla vs. Biollante because of the poorly handled time traveling rules and jargon
and boring characters (though a few do shine like the scene stealing M11).
While it may have failed to use Back to the
Future elements to succeed, when it comes to the long awaited rematch between Godzilla
and King Ghidorah though, the film lives up to that promise with more Hesei Era
visual excellence that is well worth sitting through the quantum mechanics 101
course to get to.
7/10
Next week, we wrap up Godzilla Month IV with the last of
the Millenium Films left to review.
Most
people seemed “meh” about Biollante.
How
will they react when Godzilla faces a fresh new monster after his 2000 solo
debut?
It’s
Godzilla vs. Megagirus
Next Monday right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.
So back in the day this was one of my higher rated Godzilla films. I loved the way the story treated Godzilla, with him being this chaotic and dangerous force who even when Ghidorah is defeated…remains a major problem for the story. Normally in the Showa Era, once Ghidorah had been bested, Godzilla would just head back out to sea. Heck, even in Biollante, he did that after a brief nap. Here though he lays the smackdown on Ghidorah and then…proceeds to start smashing Japan. Which I loved and thus gives a decent reason for Mecha-King Ghidorah to be created. And was a nice unintentional way to give the Heisei Era of the time advanced technology to lead to Mechagodzilla. Utilizing continuity in a way, the Showa Era never really did. Something I loved to see.
ReplyDeleteHowever, as time has gone on I’ve soured on this one a bit. Don’t get me wrong, I still like it, and the Godzilla suit for this film is my favorite Godzilla look ever; the characters and story are just a letdown especially after how I enjoyed both in Biollante. First and foremost, the time travel in the film makes no sense as you mentioned. Even without taking into account future films (ie Destroyah were we know for certain the Heisei Godzilla is a different creature than the 54 Gojira) if this was the same Godzilla from 1954, then why does everyone still know and remember what he is, when they return from the past and moving the Godzillasaurs from Largos Island?
If they were going to commit to time travel, then they should have had a distractedly altered time line as a result. Where Godzilla being removed, leads to Ghidorah taking his place, and thus Japan historically has been menaced by him for the last 50 years. Destroy Japan over and over, and thus, obtaining the Future Assholes goal of defeating Japan. Or they stick with what I thought this movie was going for, the cause and effect time loop. Acknowledge that Heisei Godzilla isn’t the same as the one from Gojira, but the time travels don’t get that. Thus when they move Godzilla in his dinosaur form in 1944, they unwittingly set up the creation of the Heisei Godzilla, via the Soviet nuclear sub accident mentioned in the film. And the Godzilla who appeared thus in 1985 in the Heisei timeline, is THAT future created Godzilla. But apparently to official Toho sources that’s not what happened either. Wikizilla has explained in a vid, but yeah, it’s way to complicated and disoriganized.
Also, going to disagree with the view of Emmy. While her actress is charming enough, her character makes NO SENSE. Ok, so she joins the Earth Union to try and balance the power of all nations in the future. And she AGREES let’s be clear on this, agrees to a plan by the radical Future Assholes she teams up with to come back in time and create King Ghidorah, to then be used by them to force Japan in the 90s to do their bidding. And no, she didn’t not know their full plans because…WE SEE HER PUSHING THE GOD DAMN DORATS (Tell them I hate them!) out of the ship in 1944. See, I could buy her character change to being a good guy, if she had not been shown to do that one act. Show M11 doing it, and then Emmy can be revealed she didn’t know her partners’ true plans. That she yes agreed to lie about Godzilla destroying Japan, but that they were doing that to earn the Japanese Government’s trust. In any case, there’s no reason she suddenly goes from ‘yes I want to help destroy Japan’ to ‘no I can’t let this happen!’ Thus, she fails in that regard for me.
Otherwise agree, lots of the characters are pretty uninteresting. Especially when compared to those in Biollante. Miki indeed begins her reoccurring character arc, but it’s not till Mechagodzilla II they start to do something with her. Shindo is pretty good, and that connection he has to Heisei Godzilla does work in the film. What I kind of would wanted, in a more serious film akin to Biollante was maybe discuss some of the topics of Japan’s economic rise and the idea of a future dominate Japan. Maybe tie that into the discussion of World War II, and compare the Japan of the past to that of the present and future. It would have gone a long way to know why Emmy wants to change Japan originally. Is in the future Japan like dominating other nations economically? Politically? Military? We don’t get a sense of why she wants to change things. The two Future Assholes, yeah they can just be jealous of Japan’s future power, but at the same time maybe they too could have been more fleshed out to provide a commentary on the relation powerful First World Nations and Developing Ones or even ones that lose some of their prestige and global power. IDK feel like they could have mined more here with the discussion of nationalism, power, and how one might wield it.
DeleteThe film though mostly serves to just show off the great effects, and as I said this is my favorite looking Godzilla. The battle against Ghidorah is good, his destruction of Sapporo, and the fight in the center of Tokyo where once again the buildings of Tokyo City Hall loom above him are just awesome. Mecha-King Ghidorah was cool, though the battle between it and Godzilla wasn’t as good as their first clash. The Godzillasaurs design was great, a nod to sort of older dinosaur reconstructions which I liked. I had a very old T-Rex toy that looked a lot like it, and I wonder if someone drew inspiration for that when they designed the monster.
Overall this one is fine, but I think it could have leaned more into the serious Heisei elements vs the goofier and return to Showa ones. Which to varying degrees come up with the next three films.
Good review dude.